A Memorable Fancy
by Insomniac By Choice
Summary: Atypical SamusXRidley fic, with apologies to William Blake and many others.
1. Chapter 1

A Memorable Fancy

There is a room. It is dark and hot. Terribly hot, dreadfully hot, and darker than hot, but hot. Endless layers of steaming black earth are piled atop the room, separating it from the surface, and endless layers of thick harsh clouds fill the sky above, all but blotting out the sun. There is no hint nor shadow of light in the room, no, not even hope of it. This is the darkest place in all creation, where all good things come to die and all wicked souls come to rest. 

But the heat! The awful, oppressive heat! If there is a hotter place in all creation, who could bear it? The torturous lakes of fire burn with an unimaginable intensity despite, no rather, _because_ of their non-luminescence. They cast darkness and that darkness hangs heavy in the air, smothering, smoldering anyone who might attempt to enter. It is maddening, terrible. Utterly unbearable.

And yet, there are those who call such places home. This room is not empty. Just now! a massive, scaly beast lies asleep on the floor, asleep or dead. It matters not which, one is but a slice of another, a moment of one the same as the other. For now he is breathing and each breath heaves his hulking body up and down, up and down, up and down like the pendulum of a grand clock, counting down to eternity.

There is but one entrance to his room, one entrance locked; the great red dragon—yes, he is a dragon—needs his rest. Nothing should disturb the sanctity of his sanctuary.

He wakes, rises. Quick! what shall we call him? But we already know his name.

Ridley roars and shakes his fires in the burdened air, hungry clouds swag on the deep. His anger burns hot with the embodiment of draconic wrath, and his disposition is dark, dark enough that he does not stand out, even in a room such as this. The source of his feelings is not present, but he has brought it with him in his mind. Dreams and memories are tangible here and he knows it.

He sighs—the fire is gone—and sprawls flat on his belly, prostrate with dejection. He lies on the ground and to himself says, 'Nothing is wrong. I am neither vanquished nor injured.'

A groan follows this. A nonexistent headache flares to life once again. His jaw is throbbing, ribs sore, and if he moves his right shoulder, it will pop and send a wave of pain crashing onto his corporal shore. Tricks of the mind. Tricks of the mind and nothing more. A little injured, maybe, but only sore. Given time he'll be good as new. No, better.

He settles down, relaxes, breathes. The noxious fumes and heat and darkness would be hell to most, but he has made it his heaven. He would rather be nowhere else than here. 'Am glad,' says he, lying on the floor, forced smile on his lips, 'Am glad.'

He closes his eyes, relaxes, sleeps.


	2. Chapter 2

Opposition is True Friendship.

Ridley is in a dark room, dark and cool. The air is artificial, as is everything else around him, and cool, cooler than he would like. But it _is_ dark, and Ridley is at home in the darkness. With avarice he clutches his prize, hidden between his feet. With impatience he waits on the one who will come to reclaim it. He is as eager as he has ever been in his life. He is eager and he is ready.

She arrives. Golden Child, Daughter of Destiny, Woman Clothed with the Sun. She is here and she wants _her_ child back, the Emerald Hatchling beneath him. He is determined she shall not have it.

Ridley roars and shakes his fires in the synthetic air, hungry clouds swag in the empty. The woman jumps aside—the fires go past—and flings her rays of light into him. With that, the darkness is gone, destroyed, and as hot as Ridley prefers to be, the rays of light burn deep, burn painful. He lashes back with his tail, strikes her. He breathes his heavy fires. They envelop her, and he is glad. But now she is out of it, out of it and into the air, no harm done. She casts another ray of light at him. He winces, drops his prize. He reclaims it, is angered, now flees. But this place cannot survive the absence of his perception. The artificial disk shudders and smokes, is destroyed, but Ridley is gone and the Hatchling with him. He is glad.

Ridley wakes and rolls on his side. The pain has lessened, but he knows not how much time has passed. A moment is an eternity; they feel the same and he feels them not. Here, time is meaningless. He is Lord and Master of all he surveys. He is ruler of an infinite nothing.

Ridley sighs.

He closes his eyes, leaves them shut but cannot sleep, opens them. The Woman he left behind is not dead, she is coming here. In minutes or hours or days she will be here in this very place, and he will be waiting for her. They will fight, one of them will die, and that will be that? That will be that. He would like nothing more than to see her dead. He lies on the floor.

It is possible that she is not coming, he realizes, that she is already dead and buried somewhere in the labyrinth that exists above. Perhaps she has become trapped and is dying. Perhaps someone else has killed her. Perhaps there is no reason to wait. Perhaps he will wait here forever.

'Will take more than one death to end her,' says he, 'If she dies, she will try again until she reaches me. And then we will do what we must,' he reminds himself. The thought comforts him.

He closes his eyes, relaxes, sleeps.


	3. Chapter 3

The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.  
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.  
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.

Ridley opens his eyes and looks above him. She is there. On the ledge above him at his door, she is there. She has come for him, come for him in his most holy of sanctuaries, and her presence is a sacrilege to it. He must expel her uncleanliness, or she must destroy his sanctity. There is no other option. They will do what they must.

She jumps down next to him, but does not see him. Not at first. He takes the opportunity to grab her round the waist and bring her up to his face.

'Alas,' he whispers, forked tongue almost caressing her, 'Must one of our lives be cut so short?'

She does not answer, probably has not heard him. Instead her arm opens up and at last Ridley sees the source of her light. A ray hits him in his forehead, the headache is back again, but he keeps her in his grip and squeezes. More beams of light, now thunder as well. He sticks her in his mouth up to her shoulders and bites down hard. The beams are going into the back of his throat now and he vomits, but continues to bite. He feels her armor of sun crack, now crunch. The beams stop. He feels the armor crunch more and the Woman goes limp. He tastes blood, turns her upside down so that it can run down his throat. He is mad with hunger.

Ridley wakes and rolls back on his belly, smothering his desire. To dream such thoughts is bad enough, to think them with a clear mind? No. No thoughts but sleep. He closes his eyes.

He loves her.

His eyes snap open. He tries to shut them and the thought with them, but cannot. He loves her, as deeply and as truly as he has ever loved anything. As he could love anything. It is repulsive to even think of such things, but he cannot help himself and knows if he falls to sleep now, that Ledaean form will drift in front of him and haunt his dreams and he cannot have that. Must not have that. Perhaps if things were different, if _they_ were different. Perhaps, but no. No, things are as they are and to imagine them any different is foolishness.

He closes his eyes, relaxes, sleeps


	4. Chapter 4

How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way,  
Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?

The Woman is there before Ridley, shining like the sun, but the sun itself is missing, nowhere to be found. Naked and helpless she is lying, on a hillside green she is lying, but it feels true and he believes. He is himself, dark and terrible, and he does not fit well into this scene. He bares his teeth, now himself, and the scales and hulk fall off revealing a man, dark still, but small and unclothed. The hardness of his body has left him save one meager appendage and he lies down beside her, now atop her. He mounts her, takes her with force, takes her willingly. She screams and coos and scratches and bites and all the while makes sweet moan. It is all madness and fury, then nothing. It is over. He groans. She shudders beneath him. He rolls off of her and she climbs atop him, a beautiful woman without pity. It begins again. Madness, fury, and ecstasy. He should be glad. He should be glad, but he feels tiny. Feels impotent. This is a fantasy, but it is not his fantasy. This will not do.

He wakes, troubled. His vision of smallness troubles him more than the dream itself — he does not want to analyze that. But does he wish he was small? Truly does he? Does he wish he was some small, soft creature of hair and flesh? How could he possibly desire such a thing? It makes no sense. He must forget it. He must dream, dream of something else, something new and better.

He closes his eyes, relaxes, sleeps.


	5. Chapter 5

Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.

Ridley is in a room, a room dark and cool. The air is artificial, as is everything else here, and cool, cooler than he would like. But it _is_ dark, and Ridley is at home in the darkness. Greedily he clutches his prize, hidden between his feet. Impatiently he waits on the one who will come to reclaim it. He is as eager as he has ever been in his life. He is ready.

She arrives. Golden Child. Woman Clothed with the Sun. She is here and she wants _her_ child back, the Emerald Hatchling beneath him. He is determined she shall not have it.

Ridley roars and shakes his fires in the synthetic air, hungry clouds swag in the empty. The Woman Clothed in Sun jumps, but is caught by his tail and flung against the wall. She is unable to dodge his fires or his tail and quickly drops to one knee, defeated. It is the time to strike, to finish it here and now and kill her, blot out her sun and destroy her utterly. Ridley pauses here, unable to end it. For some reason he pauses, now flees. But this place cannot survive the absence of his perception. The artificial disk shudders and smokes, is destroyed, but Ridley is gone and the Hatchling with him. He is glad.

He wakes and gets off of his belly. The soreness is gone, or near enough that he pays it no mind. Has a day passed so quickly? Or did his infernal nature respond well to its home? He knows not.

Ridley moves over to the corner of his room where an inner sanctum lies. He opens the door and looks inside. Here, the lake of fire is not so hot, and it is too small for him to sprawl in fullness. But this is where he has chosen to keep the remnants of his prize: the broken glass cage of the Emerald Hatchling. Hatchling, hideous child of the Golden Child herself. So hideous a progeny, it could not possibly be her own. Ridley laughs in the darkness. Hatchling, bastard child of its own mother.

But then who is its father?

The natural, almost passing thought stays with him as he turns from the inner room and shuts the door behind him. The Woman is its mother. How? How is she its mother? Because she wants to be. Because she wants to be? Because she wants to be.

Ridley jumps, flies over to his bed of stone. Lands, lies. The Hatchling has no father and only has a mother because the Woman wanted to be. But if it did have a father, could he…? Could he want to be its father? Is that what he was feeling? Does he want to be the Hatchling's father, and therefore the Woman's mate? He wants, truly, but does he want a mate so badly he desires the Woman? He has no other options so he finds beauty in her?

A troubled thought, but a pleasant one. Ridley sighs. It would be nice to be a part of a real family, and not the motley crew of pirates and horrific monsters that surround him presently. A family that cared for one another, and gave of themselves to one another. A family based on love and sacrifice, not fear and loathing.

He closes his eyes, relaxes, sleeps.


	6. Chapter 6

To love the spirit is worthy,  
To love the flesh divine.

A long day of pillaging and slaughter now gone, behind Ridley never to be reclaimed. Alas, it is behind him, but he has no regrets because he is going home at long last, home to rest, and he is not concerned with the past, only the future.

'Boy, am I sure hungry,' Ridley monologues internally as he reaches the door to his home. He unlocks the door, but before he can get it open, suddenly! Something large and translucent green shoves its way through and knocks Ridley onto his back. It attaches itself to his head and begins sucking, trying to drain him of all his energy and bodily fluids. Ridley breathes fire, attacks it using his hands and feet and tail, rolls around on the ground and thrashes, and eventually the giant green blob releases itself and retreats back inside.

Ridley picks himself up and walks inside.

'You almost had me that time, champ!' Ridley congratulates warmly, patting the Hatchling on its top.

'Scree!' his favorite child answers back enthusiastically, before racing away and out of his sight.

'Don't fly so fast in the house,' a stern voice scolds, and the Hatchling does indeed slow down. The Woman is dusting off a large slab of stone in the middle of the room. Ridley's home is completely dark but for her. She is truly radiant, but this radiance is confined only to her, as it should be. Not even a Woman Clothed with the Sun can illuminate this place. 'Oh you two,' she says, as he approaches her, 'I don't know what I'm going to do with you.'

Ridley grins.

'But I can think of a few things to do to _you_,' says he.

'Oh, you're terrible! Terrible!' the Woman laughs as he wraps his tail around her metal waist, 'Dinner is almost ready, so go wash up.'

'Of course darling,' Ridley responds, licking her helmet with his forked tongue. She shoves him away and he goes off.

Ridley walks to the edge of the lake of fire and dips hands into it, then splashes some on his face. He hisses as it burns him, then takes a deep breath and dives his head deep into the lake, holds it there. One second, two hours, three decades, four millennia. He pulls it up a moment short of eternity and sucks in the poisonous air. He is renewed. He shakes off the fires and walks back to the table. The Hatchling is already in its place at the table, and the Woman is standing next to it.

'Just in time,' she says as he walks up. She climbs upon the table and lies down, spread eagle. There is a brief metallic ding, and then her golden suit slides apart, revealing her perfect brown beautiful body in its fullest splendor. Ridley licks his teeth and then takes hold of her arm, biting through it just above the elbow.

'Mmm,' Ridley exclaims, 'Falls right off the bone!'

'Don't talk with your mouthful,' the Woman chides, 'How can I expect to teach Junior manners when you can't even behave?'

'Scree!' Junior says, taking a brief break from the Woman's thighs.

'I'm sorry darling, you just taste so wonderful, it's hard to think about manners and enjoy you at the same time.'

'Well, all right,' the Woman says as Ridley begins ripping the meat off of her breast, 'I'm just glad you appreciate me.'

'Oh darling,' Ridley says, now swallowing the other, 'I don't appreciate you, I _love_ you.'

He wakes, and lies with his eyes open for some time. He knows the dream is ridiculous, and some part of him reproaches him for the moral aspects of it, but the rest it encourages.


	7. Chapter 7

Ridley stands, walks to edge of fiery lake. Dips hands, splashes face. Hisses as it burns, takes deep breath. Dives head, holds there. One second, two hours, three decades, four millennia, five eons. Pulls up moment short of eternity, sucks in poisonous air. Is renewed. Deja vu a billion times over, dull and repetitive and endless and totally without significance. Pitiable. Foolish. Dreadful state.

He looks above, but she is not there. He sighs and drops his head. Back into the lake he stares, searching for his reflection somewhere in the corrosive fires. 'What manner of creature would the reflection shew?' he asks, 'if light there was that could reflect?'

He knows what the answer is and what it is not. He is not Human, and to think of a Human marriage with the Woman is madness. His mind creates her image before him out of the nothing, then shapes it into one more appealing. The Woman grows in size, her helmet becomes a toothy maw and her armor becomes scales and a tail. She faces away, hands flat on the ground, and raises her hind quarters to him, tail aside in a position of deference. To mount this and spread his seed would be a natural thing, the normal size of her suits him. But no—the Dragon-Woman returns to the nothing—to imagine her to be like him does no good. Were she anyone else, she would not be herself and he would not love her as he does now. Yet his love manifests itself only through desire, a desire for her flesh and nothing more. She would never accept such a marriage, even if he could find the opportunity to propose to her.

'To eat you would be such a little thing,' he says, preparing his speech for when she will surely arrive. 'One day you will die, and certainly no one will condemn you for being mortal, nor laugh at the means of your demise. You will die and the universe will go on with its business as it did before you were born. Is it so wrong to ask that you die unto me? For through me, your death will become new life. My mouth will be our chapel, and down my throat we will run to escape our guests. Then finally in my stomach will consumate, be truly joined. In my stomach will you find our wedding bed. The two will become one; I will purify your body and use it to fuel my own. We will be given an existence that is new and better than either of us might have on our own. To deny me this is to deny yourself, to kill me is to kill yourself, to kill ourself; three sins in killing three.'

Yes, that is what he will say when she arrives. And having heard it, she will step out of her suit gracefully and march into his open, waiting mouth. He will close it around her and then ecstasy. Rapture. Heaven could promise nothing better than this. Angels would trade their wings for this. Hell made endurable, if only for this.

He looks above him. She is there. On the ledge above him at his door, she is there—he must tell her his feelings. She has come for him—he must propose his marriage before it's too late—come for him in his most holy of sanctuaries, and her presence is a sacrilege to it—no! There is still time. He must expel her uncleanliness—he must talk with her—or she must destroy his sanctity. There is no other option, he realizes at last. They will do what they must.

She jumps down next to him, but does not see him. Not at first. But as he swipes at her, she curls into a ball and lays an egg, a fitting action for a Ledaean form to take. Her daughter Helen is born again as a ball of light, and his holy darkness is another Troy, destroyed. He is not bitter. She is what she is, and Ridley knows she could do no different. Still, the light is too much, and Ridley is blind. He roars and swings a claw at the Woman, but misses, he doesn't know by how much. She rains down pain on his body, and he spreads his fires everywhere, but he does not know whether he hits her or no. He sweeps the ground with his tail and feels her. She is knocked off of her feet and he pounces, takes hold. He flies up into the air, breathing fire, now biting as her beams burn him. He bites, the beams do not stop. Ridley has absorbed more than he thought he could bear, but he cannot harm her. Still, Ridley is resolute and will not release her. She is his and will be his forever. They will stay in this place forever and ever. Amen.

He stops beating his leathery wings and drops, straight into the lake of fire. Let it end here. Let them both go to their final rest like this. Hidden away from God Himself, and given opportunity to grow closer out of need, if not preference. 'Is romantic,' Ridley monologues internally, 'Is romantic.'

For a moment, they are together and in this way perfect. The moment does not last. She is free of his grasp and he knows not where she has gone. Has she been devoured by hungry the fire? Or escaped from it? Ridley frantically swims up to the surface and opens his eyes, sight returning but blurry. He sees her standing there, pointing an arm at him, and he quickly pulls himself up onto the land, charges toward her. He has lost. He has lost her.

Thunder in his shoulder, he groans. Lightning in his ribs, he stumbles. The jaw, he falls. Temple, crashes. Pain of unidentifiable sources everywhere, terrible and complete. He tries to rise from the ground, but can feel nothing. Life is leaving him and will soon be gone. How unfair that the Woman should be destroyed so many times and yet return, while he needs only be destroyed once? Ah well, such is the nature of his reality and he cannot change it. Not now.

The Woman walks past his corpse, pays him no mind. This should be the climax of both of their existences, but it is not. His journey is over, but hers continues. He is not the center of her universe. The life that remains in the corpse watches with bitter satisfaction as she walks into the inner room and finds the broken glass, finds her beloved child missing still. Enraged, she leaves him. The darkness returns, the heat has always been. Everything is as it was before. Everything will be again. The gyre will come near again. They will meet again. Ridley smiles, the expression stays fixed on his face.

He closes his eyes, relaxes, sleeps

A Memorable Fancy


End file.
